Reliez Station Road/Olympic Corridor Improvements

After years of study, planning, and public input, two sets of improvements to the Reliez Station Road / Olympic Boulevard corridor are being constructed:

1) Installation of Traffic Signals at on Reliez Station Road at both Olympic Boulevard and Las Trampas/Richelle. Adding signals should make traffic flow more smoothly, make the corridor safer, and also allow local residents better access to the busy arterial.

2) Installation of the City's first ever Roundabout at the intersection of Pleasant Hill Road and Olympic Boulevard. This project should eliminate the traffic congestion that plagues that intersection, while improving pedestrian and bicycle mobility.

These projects are a culmination of a number of traffic studies, some dating back at least two decades. Signals at the Reliez Station/Las Trampas intersection were first proposed in the early 1990s, but Lafayette opted to instead implement a series of alternative low-cost, incremental measures to improve traffic conditions in the area. Responding to area residents’ concerns, the City Council agreed to re-examine the effectiveness of these measures. Over the course of a year-long study that concluded in May 2015, engineers re-evaluated traffic conditions along the corridor with the objective of determining whether additional changes were necessary to improve traffic operations. As it turned out, the consultants found risky traffic conditions as side street traffic tried to turn onto Reliez Station Road, as well as less-than-ideal safety conditions for pedestrians crossing the mainline. With rising traffic volumes on Reliez Station Road, the engineers suggested that new traffic signals could solve these safety issues and still accommodate the arterial demand .

The intersection at Olympic Boulevard and Pleasant Hill Road has long experienced traffic congestion and delay during the peak hours. The recent study considered a number of traffic control options to solve this issue, and a roundabout was proposed as the right solution for this location. Commonplace around the world and widely used in many US states, roundabouts have increasingly gained popularity in northern California as a proven strategy to smooth traffic flows, reduce emissions, and improve safety. The geometry of the design creates a low-speed and low-exposure environment that minimizes head-on and broadside conflicts that cause the most serious injury accidents.